Italian Cruiser Zara




Career

Laid down: 4 July 1929
Launched:27 April 1930
Commissioned: 20 October 1931
Fate: Sunk
Struck: 29 March 1941
Displacement: 13,580 tons standard, 14,530 tons full load
Length: 180 m - 182.8 m
Beam: 20.6 m
Draught: 7.2 m
Propulsion: 8 boilers, 2 shafts, 95,000 hp
Speed: 33 knots (60 km/h)
Range: 5,361 miles at 16 knots
Complement: 841
Armament: 8 203 mm / 53 caliber, 16 100 mm / 47 caliber,
6 40 mm / 49 caliber, 8 13.2 mm
Aircraft: 2
Protection: max 150 mm (horizontal) 70 mm (vertical)



Zara was an Italian Zara class heavy cruiser, which served in the Regia Marina during World War II.

Her keel was laid down 1928 at O.T.O., La Spezia; she was launched on 27 April 1930, and her construction was completed in 1931. It sank on 29 March 1941. The cruiser was named after the Adriatic city of Zara (today Zadar).

Actions
Zara participated to the Spanish Civil War, having an important role in the end of the independent Basque country.

1940

• 7 July: battle of Calabria
• 19 July: battle of Cape Spada
• 1 September: operation Hats
• 29 September: operation MB 5
• 11 November: Night of Taranto

1941

29 March: In the battle of Cape Matapan, commander Capitano di Vascello Luigi Corsi, sunk. The Zara was escorting the battleship Vittorio Veneto, which had been damaged by aerial torpedo and slowed down, to Italy. The Zara class cruiser , the Pola was damaged by a torpedo from a British aircraft, and was obliged to slow down and later stop.

The remainder of the Italian force headed towards home ports, leaving the ship, but at the coming of night, the Zara together with her sister ship the Fiume and four destroyers returned to the Pola. In night action the Italian cruisers were taken by surprise by the radar-equipped British vessels. Three British battleships firing from as close a distance as 2,000 m comprehensively outgunned the cruisers. Zara and Fiume were struck several times within five minutes. Unable to recover the ship, the commander ordered the crew to scuttle and abandon Zara. The Fiume and the ship they had come back for, the Pola, and two destroyers were also sunk.

Italian cruiser Zara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

The Famous HMS Royal Oak


Career
Laid down:15 January 1914
Launched:17 November 1914
Commissioned:1 May 1916
Status:Sunk on 14 October 1939

General characteristics
Displacement:29,150 tons standard
33,500 tons full load
Length:620½ ft (189 m)
Beam:88½ ft (27 m) as built
102 ft (31.1 m) after bulging
Draught:28½ ft (8.7 m)
Propulsion:4 shaft Parsons geared turbines
18 Yarrow boilers
40,000 shp (30 MW)
Speed:20 knots (37 km/h)
Range:4,000 nautical miles (7,400 km)
Complement:1,009 to 1,146 (peacetime)
Armament:4 × twin Mk I 15-inch/42 guns
12 × single Mk XII 6-inch (150 mm) guns
4 × 2 4-inch (102 mm) guns
2 × 8 2-pdr (900 g) anti-aircraft guns
4 × 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour:13 inch belt
6 inch upper belt
10 inch barbettes
13 inch turret faces
4¼ inch turret crowns
Nickname:The Mighty Oak

His Majesty's Ship Royal Oak (pennant number 08) was a Revenge-class battleship of the British Royal Navy, torpedoed in Scapa Flow by the German submarine U-47 on 14 October 1939. Launched in 1914 and completed in 1916, Royal Oak first saw action at the Battle of Jutland. In peacetime, she served in the Atlantic, Home and Mediterranean fleets, coming under accidental attack on more than one occasion. The ship became the centre of worldwide attention in 1928 when her senior officers were controversially court-martialled. During a twenty-five year career, attempts to modernise Royal Oak could not address her fundamental lack of speed, and by the start of the Second World War, she was no longer suited to front-line duty.

Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland when she became the first of the five Royal Navy battleships and battlecruisers sunk in the Second World War. The loss of life was heavy: of Royal Oak's complement of 1,234 men, 833 were killed that night or died later of their wounds. The numerical superiority enjoyed by the British navy and its allies meant that the loss of the obsolete veteran of the First World War made little difference to the naval balance of power, but the effect on wartime morale was considerable. The U-boat commander, Günther Prien, became the first Kriegsmarine officer awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, and found himself an immediate celebrity and war hero on his return to Germany. To the British, the raid demonstrated that the Germans were capable of bringing the naval war to their home waters, and the shock resulted in rapidly-arranged changes to dockland security.

Now lying upside-down in 30 m of water with her hull 5 m beneath the surface, Royal Oak is a designated war grave. In an annual ceremony to mark the loss of the ship, Royal Navy divers place a White Ensign at her stern. Unauthorised divers are prohibited from approaching the wreck at any time.

Construction
The Revenge class to which Royal Oak belonged was ordered in the 1913–14 Estimates to be a cheaper—but smaller and slower—coal-fired version of the earlier Queen Elizabeth-class super-dreadnoughts. The design, seemingly a technological step backwards, was partly a response to fears that a dependence upon fuel oil—all of which had to be imported—could leave the class crippled in the event of a successful maritime blockade. High-quality coal, on the other hand, was in plentiful supply, and homeland supplies could be guaranteed. Furthermore, in contrast to the "Fast Squadron" Queen Elizabeths, the Revenge class were intended to be the heaviest-gunned vessels in the line of battle proper. Royal Oak and her sisters were the first major vessels for the Royal Navy whose design was supervised by the newly-appointed Director of Naval Construction, Sir Eustace Tennyson-D'Eyncourt.


Royal Oak in line astern


Royal Oak was laid down at Devonport Dockyard on 15 January 1914, the fourth of her class. Concerned over the performance limitations of coal, and having secured new oil supplies with a contract agreed with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher rescinded the decision on coal in October 1914. While under construction, Royal Oak was redesigned to employ eighteen oil-fired Yarrow boilers supplying four Parsons steam turbines each driving a single screw. The battleship was launched on 17 November of that year, and after fitting-out, was commissioned on 1 May 1916 at a final cost of £2,468,269. Named after the oak tree in which Charles II hid following his defeat at the 1651 Battle of Worcester, she was the eighth Royal Navy vessel to bear the name, replacing a pre-dreadnought scrapped in 1914. While building she was temporarily assigned the pendant number 67.

Royal Oak was refitted between 1922 and 1924, when her anti-aircraft defences were upgraded by replacing the original 3-inch (76 mm) AA guns with 4-inch (100 mm) high-angle mounts. Fire-control systems and rangefinders for main and secondary batteries were modernised, and underwater protection improved by 'bulging' the ship. The watertight chambers, attached to either side of the hull, were designed to reduce the effect of torpedo blasts and improve stability, but at the same time widened the ship's beam by over 4 meters.

A brief refit in the spring of 1927 saw the addition of two more 4-inch (100 mm) high-angle AA guns and the removal of the two 6-inch (150 mm) guns from the shelter deck.[6] The ship received a final refit between 1934 and 1936, when her deck armour was increased to 5 inches (12.7 cm) over the magazines and to 3.5 inches (8.9 cm) over the engine rooms. In addition to a general modernisation of the ship's systems, a catapult for a spotter float plane was installed above X–turret, and anti-aircraft defences were strengthened by doubling up each of the 4-inch (100 mm) AA guns and adding a pair of octuple Mark VIII pompom guns to sponsons abreast the funnel. The mainmast was reconstructed as a tripod to support the weight of a radio-direction finding office and a second High-angle Control Station. The extra armour and equipment made Royal Oak one of the best equipped of the Revenge class, but the additional weight caused her to sit lower in the water, lowering her top speed by several knots.

Career

First World War

The First World War had been under way for almost two years when Royal Oak was commissioned. She was assigned to the Third Division of the Fourth Battle Squadron of the British Grand Fleet, and within the month was ordered, along with most of the fleet, to engage the German High Seas Fleet in the Battle of Jutland. Under the command of Captain Crawford Maclachlan, Royal Oak left Scapa Flow on the evening of 30 May in the company of the battleships Superb, Canada and Admiral Jellicoe's flagship Iron Duke.

The next day's indecisive battle saw Royal Oak fire a total of thirty-eight 15-inch and eighty-four 6-inch (150 mm) shells, claiming three hits on the battlecruiser Derfflinger, putting one of its turrets out of action, and a hit on the cruiser Wiesbaden. She avoided damage herself, despite being straddled by shellfire on one occasion.

Following the battle, Royal Oak was reassigned to the First Battle Squadron. On 5 November 1918—the final week of the First World War—she was anchored off Burntisland in the Firth of Forth accompanied by the aircraft carrier Campania and battlecruiser Glorious. A sudden Force 10 squall caused Campania to drag her anchor, collide with Royal Oak and then with the 22,000-ton Glorious. Both Royal Oak and Glorious suffered only minor damage; Campania, however, was holed by her initial collision with Royal Oak. Her engine rooms flooded, and she sank five hours later, though without loss of life.

At the end of the First World War Royal Oak escorted several vessels of the surrendering German High Seas Fleet from the Firth of Forth to their internment in Scapa Flow, and was present at a ceremony in Pentland Firth to greet other ships as they followed.

Between the wars


Capt. Kenneth Dewar, court-martialled in 1928

The peacetime reorganisation of the Royal Navy assigned the Royal Oak to the Second Battleship Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet. Modernised by the 1922–24 refit, she was transferred in 1926 to the Mediterranean Fleet, based in Gibraltar and Grand Harbour, Malta. In early 1928, this duty saw the notorious incident the contemporary press dubbed the "Royal Oak Mutiny".

What began as a simple disagreement between Rear-Admiral Bernard Collard and Royal Oak's two senior officers Captain Kenneth Dewar and Commander Henry Daniel over the band at the ship's wardroom dance, descended into a bitter personal feud that spanned several months. Dewar and Daniel accused Collard of "vindictive fault-finding" and openly humiliating and insulting them before their crew; in return, Collard countercharged the two with failing to follow orders and treating him "worse than a midshipman". When Dewar and Daniel wrote letters of complaint to Collard's superior, Vice-Admiral John Kelly, he immediately passed them on to the Commander-in-Chief Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. On realising that the relationship between the two and their flag admiral had irretrievably broken down, Keyes removed all three from their posts and sent them back to England, postponing a major naval exercise. The press picked up on the story worldwide, describing the affair—with some hyperbole—as a "mutiny". Public attention reached such proportions as to raise the concerns of the King, who summoned First Lord of the Admiralty William Bridgeman for an explanation.

For their letters of complaint, Dewar and Daniel were controversially charged with writing subversive documents. In a pair of highly publicised courts-martial, both were found guilty and severely reprimanded, upon which Daniel almost immediately resigned from the Navy. Collard himself was criticised for the excesses of his conduct by the press and in Parliament, and on being denounced by Bridgeman as "unfitted to hold further high command", was forcibly retired from service. A consequence of the affair was an undertaking from the Admiralty to review the means by which naval officers might bring complaints against the conduct of their superiors. Of the three, only Dewar escaped with his career, albeit a damaged one: he remained in the Royal Navy and was promoted to Rear-Admiral the following year, one day before his retirement.

Spanish Civil War

During the Spanish Civil War, Royal Oak was tasked with conducting 'non-intervention patrols' of the Iberian Peninsula. On such a patrol and steaming some 30 nautical miles (56 km) east of Gibraltar on 2 February 1937, she came under aerial attack by three aircraft of the Republican forces. They dropped three bombs (two of which exploded) within 3 cables (555 m) of the starboard bow, though causing no damage. The British chargé d'affaires protested the incident to the Republican Government, which admitted its error and apologised for the attack. Later that same month, while stationed offshore of Valencia on 23 February 1937 during an aerial bombardment by the Nationalists, she was accidentally struck by an anti-aircraft shell fired from a Republican position. Five men were injured, including the Royal Oak's captain, T.B. Drew. On this occasion however the British elected not to protest to the Republicans, deeming the incident "an Act of God". In May 1937, she and HMS Forester escorted SS Habana, a liner carrying Basque child refugees, to England. In July, as the war in northern Spain flared up, the Royal Oak, along with the battleship HMS Resolution rescued the steamer Gordonia when Spanish nationalist warships attempted to capture her off Santander. But on 14 July, she was unable to prevent the seizure of the British freighter Molton when the latter was trying to enter Santander and was eventually captured by the Spanish rebel cruiser Almirante Cervera. The merchantmen had been engaged in the evacuation of refugees.

This same period saw Royal Oak star alongside fourteen other Royal Navy vessels in the 1937 British film melodrama Our Fighting Navy, the plot of which centres around a coup in the fictional South American republic of Bianco. Royal Oak plays the role of a rebel battleship El Mirante, whose commander forces a British captain into choosing between his lover and his duty. The film was in general poorly received by critics, but gained some redemption through its dramatic scenes of naval action.

Second World War

In 1938, Royal Oak returned to the Home Fleet and was made flagship of the Second Battleship Squadron based in Portsmouth. On 24 November 1938, she returned the body of the British-born Queen Maud of Norway to a state funeral in Oslo, accompanied by her husband King Haakon VII. Paying off in December 1938, Royal Oak recommissioned the following June, and in the late summer of 1939 embarked on a short training cruise in the English Channel in preparation for another 30-month tour of the Mediterranean. As hostilities loomed, she was instead despatched north to Scapa Flow, and was at anchor there when war was declared on 3 September.

In October, Royal Oak joined the search for the German battleship Gneisenau, which had been ordered into the North Sea as a diversion for the commerce-raiding pocket battleships Deutschland and Graf Spee. The search was ultimately fruitless, particularly for Royal Oak, whose top speed, by then less than 20 knots (37 km/h), was inadequate to keep up with the rest of the fleet. On 12 October, Royal Oak returned to the defences of Scapa Flow in poor shape, battered by the North Atlantic storms: many of her Carley liferafts had been smashed and several of the smaller calibre guns rendered inoperable. The mission had underlined the obsolescence of the twenty-five year old warship. Concerned that a recent overflight by German reconnaissance aircraft heralded an imminent air attack upon Scapa Flow, Admiral of the Home Fleet Charles Forbes ordered most of the fleet to disperse to safer ports. The Royal Oak however remained behind, her anti-aircraft guns still deemed a useful addition to Scapa's air defences.

Loss


Scapa Flow

Main article: Scapa Flow

Scapa Flow



Scapa Flow made a near-ideal anchorage. Situated at the centre of the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland, the natural harbour, large enough to contain the entire Grand Fleet, was surrounded by a ring of islands separated by shallow channels subject to fast-racing tides. The threat from U-boats had long been realised, and a series of countermeasures were installed during the early years of the First World War.

Blockships were sunk at critical points, and floating booms deployed to block the three widest channels. Operated by tugboats to allow the passage of friendly shipping, it was considered possible—but highly unlikely—that a daring U-boat commander could attempt to race through undetected before the boom was closed. Two submarines that had attempted infiltration during the war had met unfortunate fates: on 23 November 1914 UB-18 was rammed twice before running aground with the capture of her crew, and UB-116 was detected by hydrophone and destroyed on 28 October 1918.

Scapa Flow provided the main anchorage for the British Grand Fleet throughout most of the First World War, but in the interwar period this passed to the more conveniently located Rosyth in the Firth of Forth. Scapa Flow was however reactivated with the advent of the Second World War, becoming base to the British Home Fleet. Its natural and man-made defences, while still strong, were recognised as in need of improvement, and in the early weeks of the war were in the process of being strengthened by the provision of additional blockships.

Special Operation P: the raid by U-47


Infiltration of Scapa Flow by U-47
Kriegsmarine Commander of Submarines Karl Dönitz devised a plan to attack Scapa Flow by submarine within days of the outbreak of war. Its goal would be twofold: firstly, that displacing the Home Fleet from Scapa Flow would slacken the British North Sea blockade and grant Germany greater freedom to attack the Atlantic convoys; secondly, the blow would be a symbolic act of vengeance, striking at the same location where the German High Seas Fleet had surrendered and scuttled itself following Germany's defeat in the First World War. Dönitz hand-picked Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien for the task, scheduling the raid for the night of 13/14 October, when the tides would be high and the night moonless.

Dönitz directed Prien to enter Scapa Flow from its east via Kirk Sound, passing to the north of Lamb Holm, a small low-lying island between Burray and Mainland. Prien initially mistook the more southerly Skerry Sound for the chosen route and his sudden realisation that U-47 was heading for the shallow blocked passage forced him to order a rapid turn to the northeast. On the surface, and illuminated by a bright display of the aurora borealis, the submarine threaded between the sunken blockships Seriano and Numidian, grounding itself temporarily on a cable strung from Seriano. It was briefly caught in the headlights of a taxi onshore, but the driver raised no alarm. On entering the harbour proper at 00:27 on 14 October, Prien entered a triumphant Wir sind in Scapa Flow!!! in the log and set a south-westerly course for several kilometres before reversing direction. To his surprise, the anchorage appeared to be almost empty; unknown to him, Forbes' order to disperse the fleet had removed some of the biggest targets. U-47 had been heading directly towards four warships, including the newly commissioned light cruiser Belfast, anchored offshore of Flotta and Hoy 8 km distant, but Prien gave no indication that he had seen them.

On the reverse course, a lookout on the bridge spotted Royal Oak lying approximately 4,000 m to the north, correctly identified as a battleship of the Revenge class. Mostly hidden behind her was a second ship, only the bow of which was visible to U-47. Prien mistook it to be a battlecruiser of the Renown class, German intelligence later labelling it Repulse. It was in fact the World War I seaplane tender Pegasus.


Site of attack on Royal Oak

At 00:58 U-47 fired a salvo of three torpedoes from its bow tubes, a fourth jamming in its tube. Two failed to find a target, but a single torpedo struck the bow of Royal Oak at 01:04, shaking the ship and waking the crew. Little visible damage was received, though the starboard anchor chain was severed, clattering noisily down through its slips. Initially, it was suspected that there had been an explosion in the ship's forward inflammable store, used to store materials such as kerosene. Mindful of the unexplained explosion that had destroyed HMS Vanguard in Scapa Flow in 1917, an announcement was made over the Royal Oak's tannoy system to check the magazine temperatures, but many sailors returned to their bunks, unaware that the ship was under attack.

Prien turned his submarine and attempted another shot via his stern tube, but this too missed. Reloading his bow tubes, he doubled back and fired a salvo of three torpedoes, all at Royal Oak, and this time he was successful: at 01:16 all three struck the battleship in quick succession at her amidships.

A series of explosions ran through the ship, followed by an inrush of seawater. The ship immediately listed some 15°, sufficient to push the open starboard-side portholes below the waterline. She soon rolled further onto her side to 45°, hanging there for several minutes before disappearing beneath the surface at 01:29, 13 minutes after Prien's second strike. 833 men died with the ship, including Rear-Admiral Henry Blagrove, commander of the Second Battleship Division. The admiral's wooden gig, moored alongside, was dragged down with Royal Oak.

Rescue efforts
The tender Daisy 2, skippered by John Gatt RNR, had been tied up for the night to Royal Oak's port side. As the sinking battleship began to list to starboard, Gatt ordered Daisy 2 to be cut loose, the vessel becoming briefly caught on Royal Oak's rising anti-torpedo bulge and lifted from the sea before freeing herself.

Many of Royal Oak's crew that had managed to jump from the sinking ship were dressed in little more than their nightclothes and were unprepared for the chilling water. A thick layer of fuel oil coated the surface, filling men's lungs and stomachs and hampering their efforts to swim. Of those who attempted the 800-metre swim to the nearest shore, only a handful survived.

Gatt lit the lights of Daisy 2, and he and his crew managed to pull 386 men from the water, including Royal Oak's commander, Captain William Benn. The rescue efforts continued for another two and a half hours until nearly 4:00 am, when Gatt abandoned the search for more survivors and took those he had to Pegasus. Although aided by boats from Pegasus and the harbour, he was responsible for rescuing almost all the survivors, an act for which he would be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the only military award made by the British in connection with the disaster.

Aftermath


The crew of Scharnhorst saluting U-47 on its return

The British were initially confused as to the cause of the sinking, suspecting either an on-board explosion or aerial attack. Once it was realised that a submarine attack was the most likely explanation, steps were rapidly made to seal the anchorage, but U-47 had already escaped and was on its way back to Germany. The BBC released news of the sinking by late morning on 14 October, and its broadcasts were received by the German listening services and by U-47 itself. Divers sent down on the morning after the explosion discovered remnants of a German torpedo, confirming the means of attack.

On the 17 October First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill officially announced the loss of Royal Oak to the House of Commons, first conceding that the raid had been "a remarkable exploit of professional skill and daring", but then declaring that the loss would not materially affect the naval balance of power. An Admiralty Board of Inquiry convened between 18 and 24 October to establish the circumstances under which the anchorage had been penetrated. In the meantime, the Home Fleet was ordered to remain at safer ports until security issues at Scapa could be addressed.

The Nazi Propaganda Ministry was quick to capitalise on the successful raid, and radio broadcasts by the popular journalist Hans Fritzsche displayed the triumph felt throughout Germany. Prien and his crew reached Wilhelmshaven at 11:44 on 17 October and were immediately greeted as heroes, learning that Prien had been awarded the Iron Cross First Class, and each man of the crew the Iron Cross Second Class. Hitler sent his personal plane to bring the crew to Berlin, where he further invested Prien with the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. This decoration, made for the first time to a German naval officer, later became the customary decoration for successful U-Boat commanders. Dönitz was rewarded by promotion from Commodore to Rear-Admiral and was made Flag Officer of U-Boats.

Prien was nick-named "The Bull of Scapa Flow" and his crew decorated U-47's conning tower with a snorting bull mascot, later adopted as the emblem of the 7th U-boat Flotilla. He found himself in demand for radio and newspaper interviews, and his 'autobiography' was published the following year, titled Mein Weg nach Scapa Flow Ghost-written by a German journalist, in the post-war years certain of its claims relating to the events of October 1939 were brought into question.

The British Admiralty's official report into the disaster condemned the defences at Scapa Flow, and censured Sir Wilfred French, Admiral Commanding Orkney and Shetland, for their unprepared state. French was placed on the retired list, despite having warned the previous summer of Scapa Flow's deficient anti-submarine defences, and volunteering to bring a small ship or submarine himself past the blockships to prove his point.


Churchill Barrier 1, now blocking Kirk Sound, Prien's entry into Scapa Flow

On Churchill's orders, the eastern approaches to Scapa Flow were sealed with concrete causeways linking Lamb Holm, Glimp Holm, Burray and South Ronaldsay to the Orkney Mainland. Constructed largely by Italian prisoners of war, the Churchill Barriers, as they became known, were essentially complete by September 1944, though they were not opened officially until just after VE Day in May 1945. They now form part of the transport infrastructure of the Orkneys, carrying the A961 road between the islands.
In the years that followed, a rumour circulated that Prien had been guided into Scapa by one Alfred Wehring, a German agent living in Orkney in the guise of a Swiss watchmaker named Albert Oertel. Following the attack, 'Oertel' escaped with the submarine—named B-06—back to Germany. This account of events originated as an article by the journalist Curt Riess in the 16 May 1942 issue of the American magazine Saturday Evening Post and was later embellished by other authors. Post-war searches through German and Orcadian archives have however failed to find any evidence for the existence of either Oertel, Wehring or a submarine named B-06, and the story is now held to be wholly fictitious.


Wreck


Status as war grave


Memorial in St Magnus', featuring Royal Oak's bell

Despite the relatively shallow water in which she sank, the majority of bodies could not be recovered from Royal Oak. Marked by a buoy at, the wreck has been designated a war grave and all diving or other unauthorised forms of exploration are prohibited under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. In clear water conditions, the upturned hull can be seen reaching to within 5 m of the surface. The brass letters that formed Royal Oak's name were removed as a keepsake by a recreational diver in the 1970s. They were returned almost twenty years later and are now displayed in the Scapa Flow visitors' centre in Lyness on Hoy. The Royal Oak's loss is commemorated in an annual ceremony in which Royal Navy divers place the White Ensign underwater at her stern.[82] A memorial at St Magnus' Cathedral in nearby Kirkwall displays a plaque dedicated to those who lost their lives; beneath which a book of remembrance lists their names. The ship's bell was recovered in the 1970s and after being restored was added to the memorial in St Magnus'. A number of bodies, including some that could not be identified, were interred at the naval cemetery in Lyness.

Environmental concerns
Royal Oak sank with up to 3,000 tons of fuel oil aboard. The oil leaked from the corroding hull at an increased rate during the 1990s and concerns about the environmental impact led the Ministry of Defence to consider plans for extracting it. Royal Oak's status as a war grave required that surveys and any proposed techniques for removing the oil be handled sensitively: plans in the 1950s to raise and salvage the wreck had been dropped due to public opposition. In addition to the ethical concerns, poorly-managed efforts could destabilise the wreck, resulting in a mass release of the remaining oil; the ship moreover containing many tons of unexploded ordnance.

The MOD commissioned the specialist Archaeological Dive Unit Survey team based jointly at St Andrews and Dundee universities to carry out a series of multi-beam sonar surveys to image the wreck and appraise its condition. The high-resolution sonograms showed Royal Oak to be lying almost upside down with her top works forced into the seabed.

The tip of the bow had been blown off by Prien's first torpedo and a gaping hole on the starboard flank was the result of the triple strike from his second successful salvo. Following several years of delays, the task of pumping off the remaining oil has begun and as of 2006, all double bottom tanks have been cleared. A test scheme to remove oil from the inner wing tanks was successful and the MOD plans to remove the bulk of remaining oil in the summer of 2007.

HMS Royal Oak (08) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

The Nemisis U-47


October 1939. U-47 returns to port after sinking HMS Royal Oak. The battlecruiser Scharnhorst is seen in the background.

Country: Nazi Germany
Branch: Kriegsmarine
Type: VIIB
Fieldpost number: M 18 837
Shipyard: Germaniawerft, Kiel
Yard number: 582
Ordered: November 21, 1936
Laid down: February 27, 1937
Launched: October 29, 1938
Commissioned: December 17, 1938

Career
Patrols: 10
Flotillas: 7. Unterseebootsflottille
Commanders: Günther Prien
Successes: 30 ships sunk for a total of 162,769 GRT
1 warship sunk for a total of 29,150 tons
8 ships damaged for a total of 62,751 GRT
Fate: Disappeared March 7, 1941 in the North Atlantic near the Rockall Banks. 45 dead.

Unterseeboot 47 (U-47) was a German type VII B U-Boat (submarine). She was laid down on February 25, 1937 at Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel and went into service on December 17, 1938.

U-47 became famous when, on October 14, 1939, under the command of Günther Prien, she managed to enter the base of the British home fleet at Scapa Flow through a hole in the defence line, and sank the battleship HMS Royal Oak.

The Royal Oak was in Scapa Flow in a largely unprepared state, although the Second World War had recently begun.

U-47s first two salvos did nothing more than sever an anchor chain. After reloading the bow tubes the last salvo of three torpedoes struck the battleship causing severe flooding. Taking on a list of 15 degrees, her open portholes were submerged worsening the flooding and the list to 45 degrees; she sank within 15 minutes with the loss of over 800 men.

U-47 carried out ten combat patrols and spent a total of 238 days at sea. She sank 30 enemy merchant ships (164,953 tons) and damaged eight more. She did lose a sailor, Heinrich Mantyk, overboard on September 5, 1940.

U-47 had a displacement of 761 metric tons, 865 tons submerged. She was powered by two 1400 PS (1 MW) diesel engines and two 375 PS (280 kW) electric motors. Her speed was 17 knots (31 km/h) on the surface and 7.6 knots (14 km/h) submerged. Her underwater armament consisted of four torpedo tubes in the bow and one in the stern. The deck artillery consisted of an 88 mm gun and a 20 mm anti-aircraft automatic cannon. The vessel's range was 6500 nautical miles (12,000 km).


Conning tower art


U-47 went missing on March 7, 1941 and she was once thought to have been sunk by the British destroyer HMS Wolverine west of Ireland, but it turned out that the ship attacked there was actually the U-A, part of the Foreign U-Boats corps. To date, there is no official record of what happened to the U-47 or her 45 crewmen, though a variety of possibilities exist, including mines, a mechanical failure, a victim of her own torpedoes, or possibly a later attack that didn't confirm any kills - by the corvette team of HMS Camellia and HMS Arbutus.

Many years later, in September 2002, one of the unexploded torpedoes that the U-47 had fired off-course during the attack on HMS Royal Oak rose to the surface from its resting place at the bottom. The unexploded torpedo, minus its warhead, gradually drifted towards the shore, where it was spotted by a crewman aboard the Norwegian tanker Petrotrym. A Royal Navy tugboat intercepted the torpedo, and after identifying it as belonging to the U-47 63 years earlier, EOD personnel detonated it a mile from shore.



The crew of the U-47

U-47 had a crew of 47 officers and men during her fated North Atlantic patrol in the spring of 1941, all of whom are presumed dead.

Unterseeboot 47 (1938) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

BTW guys, this thread is my idea. Just PzJgr managed to post it first. Grrrrr.



My favourite, HMS Nelson. (Along with HMS Rodney, of course.)

HMS Nelson

Ordered: 1922
Builder: Armstrong-Whitworth
Laid Down: 28 December 1922
Launched: 3 December 1925
Commisioned: 10 September 1930
Decommissioned: February 1948
Status: Scrapped Starting on 15 march 1949

Displacement: 33,950 tons (38,000 tons full load)
Length: 710 ft (216.5 m) (overall)
Beam: 106 ft (32 m)
Draught: 33 ft (10 m)
Propulsion: 8 3-drum superheated boilers
2 Brown-Curtiss single reduction geared turbines, 2 screws,
45,000 hp (33.6 MW)
Speed: 23.5 knots (43.5 km/h) (trials)
Range: 7,000 nautical miles (13,000 km) at 16 knots (13,000 km at 30 km/h)
Complement: 1,361
Armament (1945):
Armour: 14 inch (356 mm) midships
6.75 inch deck
16 inch (406 mm) turret face
13.4 inch (330 mm) conning tower sides
Aircraft carried: 1, no catapult
Motto: Palmam qui meruit ferat
"Let him bear the palm who has deserved it"
Badge: A rearing lion facing back clasping a palm frond

HMS Nelson was a Nelson-class battleship (can I just say that that was a very stupid statement) of the Royal Navy built between the two World Wars. She was named in honour of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, the victor at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Built under the constraints of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, the design was limited to 35,000 tons and showed certain compromises. Inheriting some of the design of the G3 battlecruisers all of the 16 inch (406 mm) main guns in three turrets, were placed forward, and the vessel's speed was reduced and maximum armour was limited to vital areas.
The three turrets from forward to aft were "A", "B" and "X". The guns received individual nicknames being known as Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey, Sleepy, Bashful, Doc, Mickey and Minnie, sometime after the release of the film Snow White in 1937. The secondary armament was in turrets P1 to P3 on the port, S1 to S3 on the starboard. The six 4.7 inch anti-aircraft mounts were designated HA1 to HA6, the even numbers on the port. The six pom-pom mounts were numbered from M1 (on top of B turret) to M7 at the extreme aft - there was no M2 position - the odd numbers 3 and 4 to the starboard.

History

Nelson was laid down in December 1922 and built at Newcastle by Armstrong-Whitworth. Launched in September 1925, she was commissioned in August 1927 and joined by her sister ship Rodney (built by Cammell Laird) in November. She cost 7.504 million British Pounds to build, and made partial use of the material prepared for the cancelled HMS Anson and Howe, planned sisterships of HMS Hood.
She was the flagship of the Home Fleet from launch. In 1931, the crews of both ships took part in the Invergordon Mutiny. On 12 January 1934 she ran aground on Hamilton's Shoal, just outside Portsmouth, as she was about to embark with the Home Fleet to the West Indies.
Nelson was modified little during the 1930s, and was with the Home Fleet when war broke out in September 1939. On 25 September–26 September, she performed escort duty during the salvage and rescue operations of the submarine HMS Spearfish. Nelson was first deployed in the North Sea in October against a German formation of cruisers and destroyers, all of which easily evaded her. On 30 October, she was unsuccessfully attacked by U-56 near the Orkney Islands, being hit by 3 torpedoes, none of which exploded. She was later again shown up for pace in the futile pursuit of German battlecruisers. In December 1939, she struck a mine (laid by U-31) off the Scottish coast and was laid up for repairs until August 1940.

HMS Nelson firing her 16-inch (406 mm) guns during a practice shoot. The massive muzzle blast churns up water to starboard.

Upon return to service, she was deployed in the English Channel. From April to June 1941 she was on convoy escort in the Atlantic. In late May, she was in Freetown, and was ordered to Gibraltar to stand by to take part in the chase of the German battleship Bismarck.
In June 1941, Nelson, now in Gibraltar, was assigned to Force H, operating in the Mediterranean as an escort. On 27 September 1941, she was extensively damaged by a Regia Aeronautica torpedo strike, and was under repair in Britain until May 1942. She returned to Force H as the Flagship in August 1942, performing escort duties for supply convoys running to Malta. She supported Operation Torch around Algeria in November 1942, the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and the Salerno operation in September 1943 by coastal bombardment. The Italian armistice was signed between Eisenhower and Marshal Pietro Badoglio aboard Nelson on 29 September.
Nelson returned to England in November 1943 for a refit including extensive additions to her anti-aircraft defenses. Returning to action, she supported the Normandy landings but hit two mines on 18 June 1944, and was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for repairs. She returned to Britain in January 1945, and then was deployed to the Indian Ocean, arriving in Colombo in July. She was used around the Malayan Peninsular for 3 months; the Japanese forces there formally surrendered aboard her.
Nelson returned home in November 1945, as the flagship of the Home Fleet, until reduced to a training vessel in July 1946 and decommissioned in February 1948. She was used as a target vessel for bombing exercises for a few months before being scrapped on 15 March 1949 at Inverkeithing.

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The USS Bunker Hill



Career
Laid down:15 September 1941
Launched: 7 December 1942
Commissioned: 24 May 1943
Decommissioned: 9 January 1947
Reclassified: CV to CVA 1 October 1952
CVA to CVS 8 August 1953
CVS to AVT May 1959
Struck: 1 November 1966
Status: Sold for scrap 1973

General characteristics
Displacement:
27,100 tons standard
36,380 tons full load
Length:
820 feet (waterline)
872 feet (overall)
Beam:
93 feet (waterline)
147 feet 6 inches (overall)
Draught:
As built:
28 feet 5 inches light
34 feet 2 inches full load
Propulsion:
8 × boilers (565 psi., 850ºF)
4 × Westinghouse geared steam turbines
4 × shafts
150,000 shp
Speed: 33 knots (61 km/h)
Range: 20,000 nautical miles (37,000 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h)
Complement: 2,600 officers and enlisted
Armament:
4 × twin 5 inch 38 caliber guns
4 × single 5 inch 38 caliber guns
8 × quadruple 40-mm 56 caliber guns
46 × single 20-mm 78 caliber guns
Armour:
2.5 to 4 inch belt
1.5 inch hangar and protectice decks
4 inch bulkheads
1.5 inch STS top and sides of pilot house
2.5 inch top of steering gear
Aircraft carried:
90–100 aircraft
1 × deck-edge elevator
2 × centerline elevators
Honours and awards: Presidential Unit Citation / American Campaign Medal / Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (11 stars)/World War II Victory Medal / Philippine Presidential Unit Citation / Philippine Liberation Medal

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) was an Essex-class aircraft carrier of the United States Navy, nicknamed "Holiday Express" for her many attacks launched around the end of the year.

World War Two
Bunker Hill was launched 7 December 1942 by Bethlehem Steel Company, Quincy, Massachusetts, sponsored by Mrs. Donald Boynton, and commissioned 24 May 1943, Captain J. J. Ballentine in command.

1943-44
Reporting to the Pacific in the fall of 1943, Bunker Hill participated in carrier operations during the Rabaul strike (11 November 1943); Gilbert Islands operation, including support of the landings on Tarawa (13 November–8 December); the Kavieng strikes in support of the Bismarck Archipelago operation (25 December 1943, 1 January and 4 January 1944); Marshall Islands operation (29 January–8 February); strikes against Truk (17 February–18 February), during which eight Japanese combatant vessels were sunk; Marianas raid (23 February); Palau-Yap-Ulithi-Woleai raids (30 March–1 April); Truk-Satawan-Ponape raids (29 April–1 May); Hollandia (currently known as Jayapur) operation (21 April–28 April); and Marianas operation (12 June–10 August), including the Battle of the Philippine Sea. On 19 June 1944, during the opening phases of that battle, Bunker Hill was damaged when an enemy near miss scattered shrapnel fragments across the ship. Two men were killed and over 80 were wounded. Bunker Hill continued to do battle and her planes aided in sinking one Japanese carrier and destroying some of the 476 Japanese aircraft that were downed. During September she participated in the Western Caroline Islands operation and then launched strikes at Okinawa, Luzon, and Formosa until November.

On 6 November Bunker Hill retired from the forward area and steamed to Bremerton, Washington, for a period of yard availability. Repairs completed, she departed the west coast 24 January 1945 and returned to the war front.

1945
During the remaining months of World War II Bunker Hill participated in the Iwo Jima operation and the 5th Fleet raids against Honshū and the Nansei Shoto (15 February–4 March); and the 5th and 3rd Fleet raids in support of the Okinawa operation. On 7 April 1945 Bunker Hill's planes took part in a Fast Carrier Task Force attack on a Japanese naval force in the East China Sea. The enemy battleship Yamato, one cruiser, and four destroyers were sunk during Operation Ten-Go.


After two Kamikazes strikes in 30 seconds.

On the morning of 11 May 1945, while supporting the Okinawa invasion, Bunker Hill was hit and severely damaged by two Kamikazes. A Japanese Zero fighter appeared from a low cloud, dived onto the flight deck and dropped a 250-kilogram bomb, which went through the vessel and exploded in the sea.

The Zero then crashed onto the flight deck, destroying parked planes full of fuel, causing a huge fire. The remains of the Zero went over the deck and dropped into the sea. Then, a scant 30 seconds later, a second Zero, piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, plunged into a suicide dive. The Zero went through the AA fire, dropped a 250-kilogram bomb, and crashed into the flight deck near the control tower as Kamikaze were trained to aim for near the island superstructure (as was the case with the USS Sangamon). The bomb penetrated Bunker Hill's flight deck and exploded. Gasoline fires flamed up and several explosions took place. The ship suffered the loss of 346 men killed, 43 missing, and 264 wounded. This was the single most deadly Kamikaze attack on a US ship during WWII. Although badly crippled she managed to return to Bremerton via Pearl Harbor.


Kamikaze pilot Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, flying the second Zero, hit Bunker Hill on May 11, 1945.


Bunker Hill received the Presidential Unit Citation for the period 11 November 1943 to 11 May 1945. In addition, she received 11 battle stars for her World War II service.

Postwar

In September Bunker Hill reported for duty with the "Operation Magic Carpet" fleet, returning veterans from the Pacific. She remained on this duty as a unit of TG 16.12 until January 1946 when she was ordered to Bremerton for inactivation. She was placed out of commission in reserve there 9 January 1947.

While laid up, she was reclassified three times, becoming CVA-17 in October 1952, CVS-17 in August 1953 and AVT-9 in May 1959, the latter designation indicating that any future commissioned duty would be as an aircraft transport. As all Essex-class carriers survived the war, the peacetime navy had no need for the services of Bunker Hill. She and her sister USS Franklin, which also had sustained severe damage from aerial attack, were the only carriers in their class that saw no active-duty postwar service despite being repaired to good condition. Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in November 1966, Bunker Hill was used as a stationary electronics test platform at San Diego during the 1960s and early 1970s. She was sold for scrapping in May 1973.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bunker_Hill_%28CV-17%29

__________________

American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Time for an interesting one...

USS Buchanan



Laid down: 29 June 1918
Launched: 2 January 1919
Commisioned (USN): 20 January 1919
Decommissioned (USN): 7 June 1922
Recommissioned (USN): 10 April 1930
Decommissioned (USN): 9 April 1937
Recommissioned (RN): 30 September 1939
Transferred: 9 September 1940
Fate: Expended as demolition ship during St. Nazaire Raid. Destroyed 29 March 1942.

General Characteristics

Displacement: 1,260 tons
Length: 314 feet, 4 inches (95.81 m)
Beam: 30 feet, 6 inches (9.30 m)
Draft: 9 feet (2.74 m) (light) 12 feet (3.66 m) (full load)
Propulsion: 4 Normand Return-flame Boilers, Brown-Curtis single reduction geared turbines, 30,000 shp, 2 shafts.
Speed: 35.5 knots (66 km/h) designed, 39.7 knots (74 km/h) (trials-1919)
Compliment: 158
Armament: 4 4"/50 (102/50 mm), 1 3"/23 (76/23 mm), 2x3 21" (533 mm) torpedo tubes (as built)

USS Buchanan (DD-131), named for Franklin Buchanan, was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy.
Buchanan was transferred to the United Kingdom under the Destroyers for Bases Agreement in 1940 and served as HMS Campbeltown (I42). She was destroyed during the St. Nazaire Raid on 28 March 1942 when, loaded with four tons of amatol explosive, the ship rammed the gates of the Forme Ecluse Louis Joubert dry dock. The ship exploded the following morning, ending the use of the dock for the rest of the war.

Service with the United States Navy

The first USS Buchanan (DD-131) was launched on 2 January 1919 by Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine; sponsored by Mrs. Charles P. Wetherbee. The ship was commissioned 20 January 1919 with Lieutenant H. H. J. Bensen in command. Buchanan reported to Commander, Destroyer Force, at Guantanamo, Cuba, and was temporarily attached to Destroyer Squadron 2 until ordered to the Pacific Fleet in July 1919 for duty with Destroyer Flotilla 4. From 7 June 1922 until 10 April 1930 Buchanan was out of commission at San Diego. She then joined Destroyer Division 10, Destroyer Squadrons, Battle Force, and operated on the West Coast in routine division, force, and fleet activities and problems. It was for this short period that she was commanded by Thomas E. Chandler, whom would later become an admiral during World War II. In the summer of 1934, after making a cruise to Alaska with ROTC units aboard, she was placed in reduced commission attached to Rotating Reserve Destroyer Squadron 20 at San Diego.
Again placed in full commission in December 1934, she resumed operations with Division 5, Destroyers, Battle Force. Buchanan was again out of commission at San Diego from 9 April 1937 until 30 September 1939 at which time she was refitted for action with Division 65, Destroyer Squadron 32, Atlantic Squadron. From December 1939 until 22 February 1940, she operated with the Neutrality Patrol and Antilles Detachment. She was then assigned to patrol in the Gulf of Mexico, operating out of Galveston, Texas and later off Key West and around the Florida Straits. She arrived at Boston Navy Yar 2 September and then proceeded to Halifax, where on 9 September 1940 she was decommissioned and transferred to the United Kingdom under the Destroyers for Bases Agreement.

Service with the Royal Navy - HMS Campbeltown (I42)

Upon her arrival at HMNB Devonport, England, on 29 September 1940, HMS Campbeltown was allocated to the 7th Escort Group, Liverpool, in the Wes